8–12 years of experience in software quality assurance, with substantial experience designing and building test automation frameworks from the ground up. Please refer to the job advert for further information.
Lead QA Automation Engineer
Orel IT is seeking an experienced Lead QA Automation Engineer to own and elevate our quality engineering practice across web, mobile, and API platforms.
This is a hands-on leadership role: you will define and build the automation architecture and frameworks that our teams rely on, establish robust end-to-end testing processes, and mentor a team of QA engineers toward a shared standard of quality, speed, and reliability.
The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise in test automation with the leadership skills to set direction, drive best practices, and embed quality throughout the software delivery lifecycle.
Key Responsibilities
Automation Architecture & Framework Development
- Define, design, and develop the overall QA automation architecture and frameworks covering web, mobile, and API layers.
- Establish scalable, reusable, and maintainable framework components (page objects, service layers, test data management, reporting, and utilities) that the wider QA team can build on.
- Select and standardize the automation tooling, libraries, and design patterns best suited to each platform (web UI, native/hybrid mobile, and REST/GraphQL/SOAP APIs).
- Set coding standards, review guidelines, and technical governance for all automation code to ensure quality and consistency.
End-to-End Process Definition
- Develop and own the end-to-end (E2E) testing process in partnership with the QA team, product, and engineering.
- Define the test strategy across unit, integration, functional, regression, E2E, performance, and security testing, and clarify ownership at each layer of the test pyramid.
- Establish entry/exit criteria, environment and test-data strategy, defect triage workflows, and clear quality gates for releases.
- Embed automated testing into the CI/CD pipeline so quality checks run continuously and provide fast, actionable feedback.
Team Leadership & Collaboration
- Lead, mentor, and upskill QA engineers on automation practices, framework usage, and testing fundamentals.
- Partner with developers, product managers, and DevOps to shift quality left and make testing a shared responsibility.
- Drive adoption of the framework and processes across teams, and champion a culture of continuous improvement in quality.
Execution, Reporting & Continuous Improvement
- Oversee the planning, execution, and maintenance of automated test suites for web, mobile, and API.
- Define and track quality metrics (coverage, pass rate, flakiness, defect leakage, cycle time) and report on quality health to stakeholders.
- Continuously evaluate new tools, technologies, and approaches to improve efficiency, coverage, and reliability of testing.
- Investigate root causes of production defects and feed learnings back into the test strategy.
Required Skills & Qualifications
- 8–12 years of experience in software quality assurance, with substantial experience designing and building test automation frameworks from the ground up.
- Proven experience architecting automation across at least two of: web UI, mobile (native/hybrid), and API testing.
- Strong programming skills in at least one language commonly used for automation (e.g., Java, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or C#).
- Hands-on expertise with automation tools across platforms, such as:
- Web: Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, or similar.
- Mobile: Appium, Espresso, XCUITest, or similar.
- API: REST Assured, Postman/Newman, Karate, or similar.
- Solid understanding of CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps) and integrating automated tests into pipelines.
- Experience with version control (Git), build tools, containers (Docker), and cloud/device-farm test execution.
- Strong grasp of testing methodologies, the test pyramid, BDD/TDD, and quality best practices.
- Excellent problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills, with a track record of mentoring engineers.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
Preferred / Nice to Have
- Experience with performance testing (JMeter, k6, Gatling) and security testing basics.
- Familiarity with contract testing, service virtualization, and test data management strategies.
- Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and observability/monitoring tooling.
- Relevant certifications (e.g., ISTQB Advanced) are a plus.
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development and testing tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar) to accelerate framework development and test authoring.
- Ability to apply AI tools to test automation — for example, generating and maintaining test cases and scripts, creating test data, self-healing locators, analyzing failures and logs, summarizing coverage gaps, and reviewing automation code.
- Understanding of how to integrate AI-driven assistance responsibly into QA workflows, including prompt design, reviewing AI-generated output for correctness, and safeguarding sensitive data.
What Success Looks Like
- A scalable, well-documented automation framework adopted across web, mobile, and API teams.
- A clearly defined, repeatable end-to-end testing process integrated into CI/CD.
- Measurable improvements in test coverage, release confidence, and reduced defect leakage.
- A capable, motivated QA team operating to a shared standard of quality.
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